keith ellison, active user. >> first thing i have to say, @keithellison, follow me. way to get a message out and get feedback. if you send out a press release that's a one-way thing, twitter is a two-way thing. i tweeted the president about minimum wage, and we had a lively discussion. >> and we also saw in the last presidential election, john, the explosion of coverage on twitter. >> the main thing it's done more than anything, it's the latest in a succession of technologies that has sped up the news cycle. all of them, all it's done, we talked about the 24-hour news cycle, now we have a second by second news cycle. i don't know if it's good or bad for politics, but it's changed politics. >> not only has it sped up the news cycle, but also reinforces this tendency to chase after the brightest new object out there. >> it's amazing how rapidly it is. i don't tweet myself but i follow it. it means sometimes it's a shooting star. and within 24 hours, everybody has tweeted and they're all, saying, well, move on. >> it does, though, i do not tweet. and have never -- i hav

democratic representative, keith ellison of minnesota.ou, sir. >> thank you it, sir. >>> stay with us. it's a full-blown block party in today's top lines. but first, a quick recap of today's city council meeting in toronto, where the affable mayer, rob ford, stated his case. >> i think you're referring to the st. patrick's day party i had in my office. some of it was true. and some of it was false. that is not a crack house. he can't just make these hypothetical situations up. i said it would not happen again and it has never happened again at the air canada center. i've been -- >> hold on. >> a few isolated incidents. >> this is not funny, folks. >> i'm not part of gang bangers, i do not support them. >> have you purchased illegal drugs in the last two years? >> yes, i have. ♪ but every song is like gold teeth chipping in the bathroom ♪ ♪ blood stains ball gowns in the hotel room ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] this is brad. his day of coaching begins with knee pain, when... [ man ] hey, brad, want to trade the all-day relief of two aleve for six

joining me now is congressman keith ellison of minnesota.ongressman, good to have you with us tonight. on the upton bill, you, of course, voted no. you did not side with the republicans. there were 39 of your colleagues who decided to do it, for various reasons. does this weaken the position of the democrats, because it strengthens the talking points for the republicans? john boehner is going to be able to run around for a year now saying the democrats don't even believe in their own bill and what they're doing and we now have a bipartisan bill that passed, and harry reid won't touch it. what does this do to the democrats? >> nothing. we need to stand up and we should. what we should do is talk about the importance of going from a situation where we had 50 million people without any health care. we had people with lifetime limits, people being thrown off after they got sick. and we changed. and we moved on from that. that's what we need to do. we need to talk about the bad old days and the fact that the affordable care act brings us into a b

hundred billion dollars over the next decade fortunately senator bernie sanders and congressman keith ellison are trying to dry up big big oil's bottomless well to lawmakers of introduced a bill it's called the end polluter welfare act of twenty thirteen that would end the tax loopholes and corporate subsidies that are supporting big oil and that are costing american taxpayers billions every year as senator sanders put it at a time when fossil fuel companies are racking up record profits it is time to end the absurdity of american taxpayers providing massive subsidies for these hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations all the billions we hand out to big oil corporations each year are an outrage corporate welfare doesn't stop there there are many indirect but just as costly forms of corporate welfare as well take wal-mart for example america's largest retailer makes nearly thirty five thousand dollars in profit every minute and as of two thousand and twelve the corporations annual sales were around four hundred five billion dollars but those huge profits don't trickle down to their employees

with this act there are several co-sponsors of about forty co-sponsors including john conyers keith ellison that are that are essentially asking for a review of the school of the americas against windsock temporary closure of the school and an interest in an investigation to look into the connections at the schoolhouse with human rights abuses throughout latin america and i think that you know for someone that's just learning about the school of the americas today that hasn't heard about these these human rights violations that have been closely associated with the school they should really look into this more and call congress and say look we support this bill we support an investigation we don't want to be involved with human rights abuses abroad especially if we're paying for them with u.s. taxpayer dollars can you explain how much influence this current that's when sect really has over places in latin america and its political and military institutions sure one of the people that i spoke to at the rally for their boy brooke why he's actually the founder of the school of the americas wat

and i think you heard it a little bit tonight with keith ellison.se who go, hey, stop apologizing. you shouldn't let these substandard insurance policies be okay for another year. and rob rice said stop. these are bad insurance policies. don't let it happen. then you're hearing the moderates and many up for re-election in purple states going, not far enough. we need a legislative fix. they want to vote on it so they can take it back home. there is also this problem. the democrats are arguing. do you let people deem their plan for another year or for forever? here's the problem themselves cannot control it. and neither can the president. the insurance company who were dragged kicking and screaming with nasty thing said about them went along with preexisting conditions and everything. they get to decide whether they'll extend these plans and in washington state, this is a state by state thing. they're saying no way. sorry. we're not going to do it. the president is saying, keep your plan for another year and people still may not be able to. >> exactly

in fact your colleague, keith ellison, said he thinks this fix undermines the law and doesn't really fix it and will never silence his critics. what do you think about what the president said? >> well, i think it was good. he should have -- he apologized a little too much for me. he should have said that he overlooked the fact that there are individuals that have insurance policy that have low benefits and high premiums and that he would have assumed, and he should not have assumed, that they would want to improve it. having said that, he's fixing it. if you want to hold on to those policies, as long as the insurance company tells you that there are better alternatives. sure we wish we had done this before and there's no question that the website's failure is something that embarrasses everybody, every american. but the whole idea is that we're losing sight of the fact that this is a historic bill. this is providing health care to millions of people that's whole life could be destroyed if they ever reached an illness that they could not afford to pay for. and so i -- i wish the presi

keith ellison said he thinks changes undermine the program and the president should just have put his >> you can fix a website, but you can't fix your reputation. george bush. a republican. all i heard for five years. you can be -- bush lied. that stayed with him through his entire presidency. this is not just about a website anymore. i like keith, but you can fix a website, but if you have a president whose word can't be trusted, you have a bigger problem. on every single issue and you dealt with that. for the better part of two terms. >> the entire term. there moments in a presidency where everything is afterwards. for us it was hurricane katrina. while public support had been dropping for the war in iraq, after katrina, after the members of the public and every member of the democratic party viewed us as incompetent and it transcended to everything else we did. you can't look in a crystal ball, but this is a moment after which everything will be different. if you look at the problems he is facing in the world and iran and other issues, he is going to miss his credibility very. . >>